Madeleine's War

by Peter Watson

  He uncrossed and recrossed his legs.

  “Here’s the difficulty. This man—his name is Daniel Legros—is well-known among his fellow French physicists, and is especially close to one man—François Perrault—whose name you may know. Have you heard of him?”

  I shook my head. “Sorry.”

  “It doesn’t matter—in fact, it might even help, given what I’m about to say. What you do need to know is that, just before the war, when he was professor of physics at Belfort University, in the east of France, Perrault won the Nobel Prize for physics. He is a brilliant man, and was the first person to demonstrate the rate at which uranium decays. You don’t need to know what that means either.”

  Hathaway rubbed his chin.

  “Legros was able to take part in the New Mexico business—it’s called the Manhattan Project, in case you ever hear it referred to, though even that name of course is top secret—he could take part in the project because, when France fell in 1940, he happened to be at the Cavendish Laboratory in Cambridge here in Britain, and so he simply stayed. Perrault, however, was in France. And that’s what makes this so awkward. He was in France and he was very brave. He abandoned his laboratory work at Belfort immediately and went underground, helping to organise the Resistance. He has been very successful, has never been caught, has helped with a lot of sabotage, and is a specialist in intelligence and communications. He is now in Paris as one of the ex-leader-heroes of the Resistance. He may go into politics when the war is over.”

  He leaned forward and put the palms of his hands on the table.

  “Now we get to the real meat, the killer fact.” He fiddled with a gold ring on his little finger. “François Perrault is a communist, a very fervent, dedicated communist. In the 1930s he visited the Soviet Union several times and made many contacts there, and some close friends.

  “Step back again. It’s already clear that Stalin and his generals will almost certainly meet our forces somewhere in Germany. After the war, then, even if we win, Europe is going to be divided—into American- or British-style democracies, in the western part, and Soviet-ruled communist countries in the east. This will be the new reality, the new division, the new shape of Europe, after the war. Obviously, it won’t be a stable situation—although the war will be over, rivalries, possibly very deadly rivalries, will almost certainly continue. Hitler will be out of the way, we hope, in some jail somewhere, if he doesn’t get killed or kill himself, but we’ll still have Stalin to contend with, and he is just as murderous as Hitler, maybe even more so. You’ll be aware of all these stories coming out about Stalin’s so-called purges—thousands of people killed in Russia because their faces didn’t fit?”

  I nodded.

  “The logic of the situation, therefore, is that Stalin must not learn about the Manhattan Project. He must not know about the bomb until we are so far ahead, until we have built so many of these bombs, that he will never be able to catch up and will have to do as he is told.”

  He opened the file in front of him and took out two photographs.

  “It is a foregone conclusion that when Legros”—and he placed a finger on one of the photographs—“gets to Paris, the first thing he will do is tell what he knows to Perrault.” He pointed to the other photograph. “And, before long, Perrault, with his sympathies, will tell the Russians. That must not happen.” Hathaway looked at me directly. “I’ll repeat what I said: That. Must. Not. Happen. Legros or Perrault, or both, must be killed before they meet.”

  He turned the photographs round and pushed them across the table until they were right in front of me.

  “It’s not a pretty situation, I can’t disguise that. Both men are French, our allies. Neither has done anything wrong—in fact, Legros has worked hard on the weapon that may win the war at the very end. Perrault is a Resistance hero, a Nobel Prize winner. But…but circumstances have changed. We can’t afford to take any risks.”

  “Can’t he be…Can’t Legros be dealt with while he’s in America? Wouldn’t that be easier, less messy?”

  “I was coming to that. And the answer is yes. We’re trying. Or we shall be trying soon—this plan has only just got the go-ahead. But it’s not the sort of thing we want coming out after the war is over, and in any case killing Legros is easier said than done—because we have to make it look like an accident and the New Mexico outfit, the Manhattan Project, is so close-knit that we can’t approach someone inside the compound. Because if we do and we approach the wrong person, and they refuse, they might well tell Legros. Then the whole plan would be scuppered. Once he leaves the compound, he will almost certainly go straight to a port or an airport and there’ll be precious little chance to make something look like an accident at the last moment.

  “We can’t have him arrested in America, because the French authorities there don’t know about the Manhattan Project and if they made a fuss that would draw attention to his presence in North America. We don’t want that, in case it alerts the Russians. If Legros were angered by his arrest, he might even divulge something about the Manhattan Project itself.

  “We’re still going to try to kill him in America, or aboard the liner he sails on, but we need you in France, standing by, as backup. In a way it’s fortunate from our point of view that there was such a fuss over those women agents, and that MI6 stuck its oar into SC2’s affairs. We’ll be able to announce that the PM has intervened, that MI6 is back in its box, and that you have been selected to go to France to seek out what agents you can, women in particular. It’s good cover.

  “We’ll brief the press that you are an SC2 hero, with a Military Cross, but also with only one lung, the result of a war injury. That will create sympathy for a hero, who is only engaged in a mopping-up activity, nothing ‘aggressive,’ so to speak. It will square it with de Gaulle’s people, too.”

  He played again with the ring on his little finger.

  “I also gather you have a special interest in one particular agent…” He tailed off.

  I remained silent.

  “So, until we contact you, to tell you either that Legros met with an accident in America, or that he did not meet with an accident, you are free to pursue both SC2 projects—doing your best to discover the fate of all the agents, and that of your own more personal interest. But then, if we fail with Legros and he makes it to France, it’s all down to you. By then you must have located Perrault and prepared a plan, or you will have found out where Legros is expected to surface. Legros will be harder to locate and kill than Perrault, because he’ll be on the move, but his death won’t arouse as much attention. You’ll find it easier to escape if you kill Legros than if you kill Perrault. In either case you must make it look like an accident, so there’s no damage to our relations with the French.

  “That’s it.”

  When I didn’t say anything for a time, he went on: “I understand you have killed three people. Is that correct?”

  I nodded.

  “May I ask how you killed them?”

  “Two I shot, the other I garrotted.”

  He raised one eyebrow.

  “I’m impressed.” He nodded to himself. “So…how can I say this…killing, killing at close range, is not a problem for you?”

  “I…I had thought—hoped—I’d seen the back of it. They were desperate times.”

  “I hope I’ve shown that we’re still in desperate times.”

  I breathed out heavily. “But there’s something…almost theoretical about all this, isn’t there? You can’t be certain that Legros will tell Perrault or that Perrault will tell the Russians. Maybe Legros is an anti-communist.”

  “Maybe. But we can’t take that risk. We understand that several of the physicists in the Manhattan Project think the information should be shared with the Russians. One of them travelled all the way to Downing Street to bend Winston’s ear. The PM told him to stop interfering!”

  He shook his head. “No, both Legros and Perrault are scientists, and long-standing colleagues. When
they meet, they are bound to talk physics, uranium, plutonium, atomic bombs. Our calculation is that the great secret will change hands. A lot of wartime activity is about calculation—you know that.”

  It’s not every day you are asked to kill someone, still less an ally. Until then, I hadn’t really looked beyond the end of the war, but if what Hathaway said was right, the end of war was only the beginning of something else, almost as bad.

  Quite apart from that, could Hathaway be trusted? Was the Manhattan Project for real? Was there some other reason—too secret for me to be let in on—for Perrault’s assassination? Was I being roped into something that I would regret?

  But if I couldn’t trust the prime minister, who could I trust?

  And at the same time, it would mean I could go to France, and that was where Madeleine was, alive or dead.

  All of a sudden my insides had settled. I was more comfortable in my skin. I was going to be doing something at last.

  “And if I get caught?”

  “You know the answer to that, too. You are on your own. It was a personal vendetta, as a result of what happened earlier in the war. You went beyond your remit, your girlfriend or wife was killed in France, perhaps by the Resistance—we’ll work something out. The real reason cannot surface. We’ll give you written authority, signed by the PM, to say you are looking for agents. That will give you access everywhere, and be one hell of a memento after the war.”

  “If I say no?”

  He nodded again. “I would understand. But I—we—calculate you won’t say no. Someone you love is missing. You hate sitting here, being unable to go looking. This is your chance. We are offering you a deal, a quid pro quo. A momentous job in the war, the opportunity to have an important effect on the post-war world, and a chance to settle something personal. If you agree, you won’t hear from us again until the Legros mission in the United States or aboard ship either succeeds or it fails. You will receive an anonymous secret telegram saying either that ‘the wedding has been called off,’ or else ‘the wedding goes ahead.’ ”

  He didn’t say anything else for a moment. Then, “What’s it to be?”

  I remembered asking Madeleine much the same question at her interview for SC2 in The Farm. In war, all the important decisions have to be taken quickly.

  I rolled the PM’s cigar near my ear, then under my nose.

  “I’ll take this with me,” I said, holding it up before slipping it into my pocket. “If I succeed with Legros or Perrault, I’ll send you a brief message: ‘Havana smoking.’ How’s that?”

  “I think it’s melodramatic.” He paused. “The PM will love it.”

  · 17 ·

  I HAD NEVER SEEN SO MUCH SHINGLE. There was more shingle in Blakeney than there was sand in Ardlossan. It rode high out of the water, a grey-yellow North Sea, and disappeared east and west as if it would go on for ever. This was not a romantic seascape—far from it. It was much too bleak to be romantic.

  I didn’t know Blakeney and I didn’t know north Norfolk or East Anglia. And I doubted I would be coming back any time soon. I had twenty-four hours before I left for France, just enough for a swift dash to see Madeleine’s mother, in case she could tell me anything about her daughter that I didn’t know and might help find her. It was a long time since we’d had word from Oak and a mother’s inside knowledge might make all the difference.

  The train from King’s Cross had stopped an interminable number of times—Hitchin, Baldock, Cambridge, Ely, Downham Market, and all the rest—arriving at King’s Lynn more than three hours after its whistles and steam had seen us off. I used Mr. Churchill’s letter for the first time to get me inside the coastal exclusion zone. It worked perfectly.

  I had found Madeleine’s mother’s cottage easily enough. The taxi that I shared with another rail passenger belonged to a firm, the King’s Men, with a small office in the harbour town. We had stopped there and simply asked if they knew where Mrs. Dirac lived. They did.

  The only problem: she wasn’t in. I hadn’t been able to alert her to my arrival: I knew from Madeleine that she didn’t have a phone and letters to and from Blakeney would have taken too much time. I had been waiting now for more than two hours and it was coming up for three o’clock. The last train back to London left King’s Lynn at 7:13 but I had made a reservation at the Blakeney pub, the Three Crowns, in case I had to stay the night.

  I was sitting now on a small wooden bench on the harbour jetty, watching the fishermen coming in. Most of them already had their catch packed up in long, thin fish boxes by the time they arrived home and simply winched the boxes ashore. The fish would be down in London by midnight, where they would land a pretty penny. The fishermen would have made even better money in wartime but for the fact that they couldn’t go too far out to sea because of the threat of enemy submarines.

  Across the jetty was a small, green-painted caravan with a flap in one side, selling tea and cakes and sandwiches, and I thought a mug of tea would not go amiss. The wind wasn’t letting up.

  I got to my feet and started across the jetty. Another fishing smack was chugging down the small channel-amid-mudflats that Blakeney was at low tide. As I did so, I noticed another taxi coming down the gentle hill of the High Street. It pulled round and stopped outside the white-painted cottage that I knew belonged to Mrs. Dirac.

  I watched as the solitary figure in the back seat leaned forward, presumably to pay, and the figure waited, presumably for change or a receipt. Then the driver’s door opened and the taxi man went round to the back of the car, taking out what looked like a large briefcase. A small woman got out of the rear passenger door. It was not obvious, at that distance, that this was Madeleine’s mother. Their physical resemblance was slight to non-existent: different hair colour, a different build—Victoria Dirac was chunkier than her daughter—and she had a different way of moving. The taxi man handed her the briefcase, closed the boot of the car, and returned to the driver’s seat. Mrs. Dirac took a key from her handbag, waved the taxi driver goodbye, and let herself into her cottage.

  I decided to have some tea anyway. I wouldn’t like it if, the minute I got home after a trip, someone knocked on the door. We might well get off on the wrong foot.

  So I bought a tea and a digestive biscuit, and went back to my bench, keeping an eye on the cottage in case Mrs. D. decided to go out again straightaway.

  After about a quarter of an hour I crossed the jetty and knocked on her door.

  There was a short delay, and then she opened it. Unlike Madeleine, she had dark hair, cut short, vivid blue eyes. She was wearing a tweed skirt with a cream silk shirt. She looked very smart and businesslike, very composed.

  “Yes?” she said.

  “Mrs. Dirac, I’m Matthew Hammond, Matt Hammond—does that name mean anything to you?”

  She looked puzzled for a moment, but then her face broke into a smile, followed by a frown. “Yes, yes, it took me a moment—not expecting…You haven’t got bad news, have you?”

  “No, no!” I said quickly. “No, that’s not why I’m here.”

  She closed her eyes and covered them with her fingers. Dropping her hand and opening her eyes, she said, “Thank the Lord for that. I thought…You know what I thought.”

  I nodded. “Of course. It’s natural. I’m sorry if I startled you.”

  “If you don’t have bad news, do you have good news? Have you come all this way from London specially?”

  “Might we go inside, Mrs. Dirac? Somewhere we can sit and talk.”

  “Yes, of course. Silly of me. Please come in.”

  The front door opened directly into the living room, which was pleasant enough, with airy windows, two sofas, a wireless, a big mirror on one wall, and a fireplace with several photographs of Madeleine, her mother, an older man whom I took to be her father, and a younger man about whom I didn’t want to think too much right now. A small pile of what looked like sheet music was stacked on an upright piano.

  Hearing us, a dog came through fro
m another room—a spaniel. He, or she, came up to me and sniffed my trousers.

  “Wellington!” said Mrs. Dirac. “Behave!”

  She looked at me and smiled. “Don’t mind him. He has a general’s name but he’s harmless.”

  I stroked the dog and he jumped up on to a sofa.

  I sat down next to him and Mrs. Dirac sat in a cane chair opposite me.

  “May I offer you something? I’m forgetting my manners—I’ve only just got in after a day at a client’s house in Cromer. I make and fit curtains—that’s what I was doing all day. Have you been waiting long?”

  “It doesn’t matter at all how long I’ve been waiting, but I’m glad we’re here now. And I don’t need anything except your permission to smoke.”

  “Yes, let’s have a cigarette?” she replied. “Have you got enough for me?”

  I took out my cigarette case and opened it.

  She reached forward.

  As she took a cigarette I said, “Madeleine gave me this.”

  She let me light her cigarette before saying, “So you are more than her boss?”

  “She didn’t tell you?”

  She shook her head.

  I paused for a moment. I wasn’t sure what to make of what she had just said. And I couldn’t make out her mood. Was she anxious that I was there? She seemed calm.

  “The reason I am here, Mrs. Dirac, is that—and I don’t want you to be unduly alarmed—is that we haven’t heard from Madeleine since a couple of days after the invasion in June—”

  She looked up sharply, holding her tongue between her lips. It was an expression that still gave nothing away.

  “The last we heard was when she broke off in the middle of a transmission. It’s obviously not the best news we could have, but it may not mean the worst, not by any means. If we, in the office, in the government, felt that, I wouldn’t be here.”